Obedience owed to God is drawn from patience

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Tertullian is arguing that if even slaves and animals obey their masters, how much more must Christians obey God, and that this obedience itself comes from patience.

So if we see every good and right-minded slave behaving according to his master's character—since the art of earning favor is obedience, and the discipline of obedience is compliant subjection—how much more should we be found conducting ourselves according to the Lord, as slaves of the living God, whose judgment on his own turns not on a shackle or a cap, but on an eternity either of punishment or of salvation? To avoid that severity or to be invited by that generosity requires as much diligence in obedience as the things themselves which the severity threatens or the generosity promises. And yet we exact obedience not only from human beings bound in slavery or indebted to obedience by any other right, but even from cattle, even from wild beasts, understanding that they have been provided and handed over to us by the Lord for our uses. Will the things God subjects to us, then, be better for us in the discipline of obedience? In short, the creatures that obey acknowledge their masters. Do we hesitate to listen to the one to whom alone we are subject, the Lord? How unjust it is, how ungrateful too, that what you obtain from others through another's kindness you should not repay to the very one through whom you obtain it, from your own self! No more need be said about rendering the obedience we owe to the Lord God. For the knowledge of God understands what is incumbent upon it. But so that we do not seem to have introduced obedience as something foreign, obedience itself is drawn from patience. Does anyone who is impatient obey, or anyone who is patient resist? What the Lord God, the demonstrator and acceptor of all good things, has surrounded himself with—who would draw back from its good? Who likewise could doubt that every good, because it belongs to God, is to be pursued with the whole mind by those who belong to God? Through these things, in a summary and as if in a compendium of prescription, both the commendation and the exhortation concerning patience have been established.

Latin

Igitur si probos quosque seruos et bonae mentis pro ingenio dominico conuersari uidemus, - siquidem artificium promerendi obsequium est, obsequii uero disciplina morigera subiectio est — quanto magis nos secundum dominum moratos inueniri oportet, seruos scilicet dei uiui, cuius iudicium in suos non in compede aut pilleo uertitur, sed in aeternitate aut poenae aut salutis? cui seueritati declinandae uel liberalitati inuitandae tanta obsequii diligentia opus est, quanta sunt ipsa, quae aut seueritas comminatur aut liberalitas pollicetur. et tamen nos non de hominibus modo seruitute subnexis uel quolibet alio iure debitoribus obsequii, uerum etiam de pecudibus, etiam de bestiis oboedientiam exprimimus, intellegentes usibus nostris eas a domino prouisas traditasque. meliora ergo nobis erunt in obsequii disciplina quae nobis deus subdit? agnoscunt denique fl. quae oboediunt: nos cui soli subditi sumus, domino scilicet, auscultare dubitamus? at quam iniustum est, quam etiam ingratum, quod per alterius indulgentiam de aliis consequaris, idem illi, per quem consequeris, de temetipso non rependere! nec pluribus de obsequii exhibitione debiti a nobis domino deo. satis enim agnitio dei, quid sibi incumbat, intellegit. ne . tamen ut extraneum de obsequio uideamur interfecisse, ipsum quoque obsequium de patientia trahitur. numquis non' patiens obsequitur aut patiens obluctatur? quam ergo dominus deus, omnium bonorum et demonstrator et acceptator, in semetipso circumtulit, quis de bono eius late retractet? cui item dubium sit omne bonum, quia ad deum pertineat, pertinentibus ad deum tota mente sectandum? per quae in expedito et quasi in praescriptionis compendio [et commendatio et exhortatio] de patientia constitutum est.

About this text

Tertullian, who admits he is short of patience himself, praises it as the virtue every Christian duty needs, after the pattern of God and Christ.

Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220) was a Christian writer from Carthage in North Africa, and one of the earliest Christian authors to write in Latin. He wrote this treatise for fellow Christians, though he names no particular person or church. He opens by confessing that he himself is weak in patience, and says he writes because no command of God or work pleasing to him can be performed without it.

The work presents patience as the central discipline of Christian life. Tertullian argues that patience is God's own nature, shown in his forbearance toward the wicked and supremely in Christ's passion. Its opposite, impatience, began with the devil and is the root of every sin, from the fall of Adam and Eve to the crimes of Cain and Israel. A reader will meet God and Christ as the supreme examples of patience, the devil as the origin of impatience, and figures such as Adam, Eve, Cain, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Job, Isaiah, Stephen, Elijah, and Malchus. The words of Christ, the apostle Paul, and God in scripture are quoted and argued from.

The treatise contrasts true Christian patience with the false patience taught by the devil to his own followers. Patience governs every Christian duty: bearing loss, enduring wrong, accepting death, renouncing revenge, forgiving others, and practicing bodily self-denial. The translation renders patientia as patience and impatientia as impatience throughout. Old Latin Bible names are given in their familiar English forms, so Esaias is Isaiah, Helias is Elijah, Moyses is Moses, Iob is Job, Stephanus is Stephen, and Eua is Eve. Malchus is the high priest's servant whose ear was cut off at Jesus' arrest and healed by him.

New English from the Latin base text; no published English used as wording.

Printed text used

Translated from CSEL 47 (1900) (Latin)
Also checked Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Quae Supersunt Omnia Tertullian Franz Oehler T. O. Weigel Leipzig 1853 (Latin · comparison witness (not aligned to the sections))

This work has passed this project's source check. This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.